The Evolution of Portable Gas Detection - Gem Bayless

The evolution of the portable gas detector can be likened to that of the mobile phone, which started its life as a large and cumbersome object requiring an even larger battery pack. These archaic telecom ancestors look almost alien compared with today’s Smart phones that offer us so much more than the ability to make a call on the move. Portable gas detection has enjoyed a similar progression.

One of the first portables produced by Honeywell Analytics (known as Sieger at the time), was called Model 1650; a flammable portable gas detector weighing in at a weighty 3 pounds (1.36 kg) with equally oversized dimensions of 210mm high x 110mm wide x 60mm deep to house its giant battery. Today portable devices can fit snugly in the palm of your hand and weigh grams rather than kilograms; in fact they can offer so much more than their early predecessors like Model 1650.

The very first portable gas detectors were in fact entirely organic. Canaries were taken into mines to check for Carbon Monoxide (CO) and Methane (CH4) gases. Canaries were chosen over other birds owing to their fondness for singing; if gas was found, the canary would stop singing and eventually die, providing a window of opportunity for the miner to leave and get to safety